


Somebody Get My Phone So I Can Throw It

by PadawanRyan



Category: Bandom, Jonas Brothers, The Academy Is...
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - No Band, Awkwardness, Based on a Tumblr Post, Inspired By Tumblr, M/M, Miscommunication, Pre-Slash, Scam Phone Calls, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-07
Updated: 2019-07-07
Packaged: 2020-06-24 05:14:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19716937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PadawanRyan/pseuds/PadawanRyan
Summary: Kevin Jonas is already having a bad day thanks toMike freakin’ Cardenand his friends, and to top it all off, some dude is trying to scam his grandmother. Why was this his life?





	Somebody Get My Phone So I Can Throw It

**Author's Note:**

> So, this oneshot is inspired by [this particular Tumblr post](https://trans-shinji.tumblr.com/post/184672146275/answered-a-scam-call-today-and-had-the-most) about a scam phone call because the moment I read it, I knew I had to write a fic about it. My original intention was indeed to write a Skippy fic - because as I read it, I definitely read it as Mike and Kevin - but I also debated over whether or not I would actually do it, and instead actually almost wrote a non-related Joick. My reasoning was simply that since I've never written Mike before, I was unsure that I could write him properly, but well, there has to be a first time for everything, right?
> 
> I also ended up as a Frerard fic because I could totally read Frank and Gerard in this too, but well, I've never written either Frank or Gerard either, and while I've never written Mike, I _have_ written plenty of Kevin. However, I certainly wasn't going to write 500K words or as a slow-burn because well, I can barely commit to even 1K words, let alone more than that — I'm a busy PhD student who can't even commit to writing his comps. This was actually only going to be the phone call and then left off on a cliffhanger at the end, but I decided that I had to do a little more with it, and therefore left the door open for that happy ending.

Frustrated. There was no other word to describe how he was feeling; Kevin was _frustrated_.

This wasn’t an unusual feeling for him, so his grandmother – who had graciously allowed him to live with her during college – didn’t even bat an eye as he walked through the back door, stomped through the kitchen to the living room, tossed his bag onto the couch, let out a loan groan, and then collapsed on the other side of said couch. Kevin was a little overdramatic sometimes and his grandmother had long since become accustomed to it.

“Why me?” he whined between his fingers as he clawed down his face with his hands. “Whyyyyy meeeee?”

His grandmother, sitting at the kitchen table, did not even look up from her magazine as she called out to the living room, “Is everything okay, hun?”

“No,” he groaned out, “everything is _not_ okay.”

“Well, do you want to talk about it?”

No, he did not want to talk about it; the last thing he wanted to do was talk about it. He knew exactly how his grandmother would respond to his story and he wasn’t in the mood for _logic_ right now, he wanted someone to tell him how right he was and that they were willing to plot revenge with him. Joe would do it. God, sometimes he really missed Joe.

Kevin had decided to move out of his parents’ place when he started college because he wanted some semblance of independence and didn’t want to be surrounded by his parents or his younger brothers constantly anymore. How was he supposed to focus on school work with everyone else making noise or bugging him to spend time with them? However, he knew very well that he couldn’t exactly afford to just move out and live by himself or with a roommate, so he and his grandmother agreed that he’d live with her during college and she wouldn’t set any rules for him. He could be independent and avoid the noise of his immediate family without struggling financially.

But, during his overdramatic moments such as this, he really missed having Joe around.

“No,” he mumbled, unsure if she could even hear him. “It’s just stupid.”

He knew it was stupid, but that didn’t stop him from being frustrated. This whole situation wasn’t his fault and therefore he felt justified in blaming it on _Mike freakin’ Carden_ and his friends, who decided to jam on the quad this afternoon and ruin Kevin’s ability to study outside, right beside the picturesque fountain, on what might be one of the last snow-free days of the semester. Not only that, but some jackass – he’s pretty sure it was the tall Latino guy who constantly mooned over Carden’s best friend Bill – had shoved him pretty hard in an attempt to get closer to the group, knocking Kevin’s notes right into the fountain.

It might not be Carden’s fault, but it was definitely his friends’ fault, and Kevin was not above sticking that blame on the bane of his existence that was Mike Carden.

The thing about Mike Carden is that he was in pretty much every class Kevin had at the college since freshman year. They were both studying in the same program (music) and both played the same instrument (guitar), so they were actually flung together more often than not. This wouldn’t have been a problem except for the fact that Carden was a complete jerk every time they had to work together and would regularly act as though Kevin had no idea what he was doing, as though Carden was the only person who had ever played guitar before. By the time freshman year was over, the two had already developed a rivalry for one another.

Carden and his friends, however, were pretty popular around campus – even college was not immune to popularity contests amongst the students, especially a small campus such as this one – and Kevin was the quiet guy that nobody realized even existed. So, this led quite often to Kevin being shoved or stepped on accidentally in someone’s attempt to reach Carden and his friends, his disdain for the group successfully increasing each time.

“Well, if you’re sure,” his grandmother responded. “In the meantime, there are some tater tots in the oven.”

Tater tots. That was Kevin’s favourite thing to snack on and bless his grandmother, she knew exactly how to cheer him up without even having to talk over the situation logically with him. A smile inched onto his face for the first time that afternoon.

“Okay, thanks Nan.”

He could hear his grandmother get up from her chair in the kitchen and head up the stairs, probably to take a nap or a bath or something of the sort. Kevin opened up his bag and pulled out his notes – those that hadn’t been destroyed by the fountain – so that he could attempt to study as best he could with only half the information he needed. If only he wasn’t the quiet, invisible guy on campus, then perhaps he would actually have a friend whose notes he could borrow.

Studying on the couch at his grandmother’s house proved to be far more efficient than studying outside on campus, even if the surroundings were far less _beautiful_ – he was definitely a sucker for nature – so he almost missed the oven timer alerting him that the tater tots were ready. Taking a brief break to retrieve the hot tots from the kitchen, Kevin also grabbed the phone and brought it with him to the living room, considering perhaps calling Joe in a little while to complain about his afternoon and receive the response he _needed_ today. If Joe was even home; his brother had been out more often lately than usual.

It was only a few minutes later, when he was trying to understand what he had even written about music theory, that the phone rang. Joe couldn’t be calling him, could he? That didn’t happen often but almost nobody else besides family ever called his grandmother’s phone.

Not even looking at the caller ID, Kevin pressed the talk button and lifted the phone to his ear. “Joe, thank God, I have had the worst—”

_“Hi, this is Jim from Microsoft. How are you today?”_ came the definitely-not-Joe voice on the other end.

“Oh,” Kevin stated, a little embarrassed that he hadn’t even checked to see who was calling before making the assumption that it was his brother. “I’m…good, thanks.”

_“Good, that’s good,”_ came the voice again, sounding a little bored but amused at the same time. There was something else about that voice, but Kevin couldn’t quite place it. He was dragged from his thoughts as the voice began to speak again. _“You see, I’m calling because your IP address has been compromised. I’m going to need you to get in front of your computer so we can fix this up.”_

That was…odd. Kevin couldn’t pretend he knew much about computers, but something about that explanation seemed a little off. He knew enough to know what an IP address was, and he wasn’t sure how one could even become compromised.

“Okay!” he responded, a little more enthusiastically than necessary. “But there’s one thing I’m wondering?”

_“Yes?”_ came the bored voice again on the other end, sounding almost impatient this time.

“You really couldn’t think of a better lie?”

There was silence for a moment before Kevin continued, “like, my ‘IP address has been compromised’. How exactly does an IP address become compromised?”

The silence continued. It was very clear now that this was a scam call, probably designed to scam elderly people who had little knowledge about technology out of their money to “fix” whatever issue the scammer claimed was the problem. Kevin was glad that he was the one who answered the phone because while his grandmother was a critical, logical individual, she did not know much about computers and might even have fallen for the ruse.

“I’m just wondering, is all,” he added, attempting to sound casual about the question.

Finally, the voice asked, _“Why did you answer?”_

That caught Kevin off guard. “What?” he asked, unsure of what else to say.

_“If you knew this wasn’t a legitimate call, why did you answer?”_

He certainly didn’t want to admit that he hadn’t even checked the caller ID and had assumed that it was his younger brother calling – and shouldn’t the scammer have known that already? He practically gave it away when addressing him as Joe when he picked up – so Kevin responded simply by stating that he wanted to have some fun at the scammer’s expense. Of course, he hadn’t expected the other voice to reason that talking was of no expense to him, effectively making Kevin look stupid. He could hear the almost-amused tone return to the scammer’s voice.

“Well,” Kevin began again, “you’re not currently accomplishing your goal.”

_“My goal?”_ the voice asked, sounding bored-yet-confused this time.

“Your goal of scamming my elderly grandmother. You’re not accomplishing that, seeing as you’re taking to me and not her. I’d call that an expense.”

There was more silence for a moment before the voice asked, _“Well, can I scam you?”_

Kevin didn’t know how to respond for a moment. “D-did you…” he stuttered and stopped, trying to figure out how to word his question, “just ask if you could _scam me?”_

_“Yes.”_ The voice was more confident this time. _“Can I scam you?”_

“Sure, you can try.”

_“Okay, you need to get in front of your computer, and I’ll walk you through it.”_

Kevin was almost laughing now. Did this scammer really think that he could scam Kevin? He couldn’t be that stupid, could he? No, this scammer clearly knew that his game was up, which meant that for some reason he wanted to keep Kevin on the phone. He wanted Kevin to walk all the way to the computer and listen to his ridiculous ruse just so that Kevin stayed on the line, but for what reason? That alone made him nervous and somewhat unwilling to remain on the line, as though he was suddenly becoming the butt of some joke.

“Yeah, that’s still a problem,” he explained, attempting to keep sounding casual. “I’m eating tater tots right now – they’re my favourite thing to snack on, I swear someone could win my heart with tater tots and black coffee alone – so I really don’t feel like getting up.”

_“Okay,”_ the voice responded, seeming to understand what Kevin was getting at. _“I’ll call you tomorrow then.”_

“I might not answer. My grandmother definitely won’t,” Kevin reasoned.

_“You answered today.”_

Well, damn. He had him there. “Touché.”

_“I’ll call you back tomorrow afternoon, then. Have a good night, Jonas.”_

It took Kevin a whole three minutes after he hung up the phone to realize that the scammer had addressed him by his last name when he hung up. The scammer knew his name was Jonas. How had the scammer known who he was? _Oh, right_ , he thought, realizing that the scammer had called to speak originally to his grandmother. In order to know that there was an elderly woman living there, he had to have a list of some sort of names and numbers, didn’t he?

Kevin didn’t dwell on it and continued to eat his tater tots in silence.

* * *

Frustrated. His first class hadn’t even begun yet the next morning and Kevin was already _frustrated_.

His bus had been late getting into campus, which left Kevin with only a short amount of time to jump in the Starbucks line and grab a coffee before class began. Unfortunately for him, it seemed that _Mike freakin’ Carden_ and all his friends made up the majority of the line, which ensured that Kevin would 1) probably not have the opportunity to even receive his coffee without being late to class, and 2) did not even want to stand in the line or _anywhere near them_ in the first place. So, giving up on coffee, Kevin trudged along to his classroom, tossing himself into a seat in the back when he arrived so that nobody would have to see his bleary, irritated face.

The rest of the class shuffled in soon afterward, the seat beside Kevin remaining open. Perhaps his frustration was more evident than he thought.

Until, five minutes into the class, the door creaked open and some slipped right into that seat. Kevin was too busy taking notes to notice until he saw a Starbucks cup sitting on the corner of his desk. The late person to class must have put it on Kevin’s desk by accident while pulling their books from their bag, right? They would take it back within seconds and it would be out of Kevin’s way and Kevin’s thoughts and _God_ , he really wanted some coffee.

But it didn’t disappear within moments. In fact, out of the corner of his eye, he could see another cup on the desk beside him.

Sneaking a look, he realized that it was _Carden_ sitting beside him. _Carden_ bought him coffee.

This was a joke, right?

Kevin wanted to ask him about it, but he also knew that this professor would not appreciate him talking in class, and even if he was quiet enough not be caught, he didn’t want to risk it. Kevin’s craving for coffee won out over his apprehension at the situation – if something bad was going to happen then it was going to happen anyway, so he’d brace himself for the rest of the day – and he took a sip. He almost moaned because it was _perfect_ , and how did Carden of all people know that he liked his coffee black?

Class went by quicker than it had begun now that Kevin had coffee to wake him up. It barely felt like it had been two hours when the professor finally dismissed them, and Kevin was already shuffling his way out the door so he could get some lunch when he felt a hand on his wrist. He turned to find Carden holding him in place and gulped, realizing that now he was going to be suffering the consequences of whatever the coffee thing was about.

“I—”

“You’re probably hungry,” Carden said in his gruff manner, mumbling a little more than Kevin was used to hearing from him. “Here.”

And then, to Kevin’s surprise, the other man shoved into his hand a Tupperware container. The confusion was surely evident on Kevin’s face as he tore his arm back from Carden to open the container and inspect its contents.

Tater tots.

Carden gave him tater tots.

How would Carden even know that he liked _tater tots?_

Unless—

“You called me yesterday. You tried to scam my grandmother,” he accused.

“Yes,” the other man admitted. “I mean, no…I mean, _yes_ , I did call you, but _no_ , I wasn’t—”

“And you’re what, trying to make up for it now? No thanks, I don’t think I want to accept guilt gifts from the dude who tried to steal from my grandmother.”

Pushing the Tupperware container back into Carden’s hands, Kevin turned and immediately stalked away, not missing the pained look on the other man’s face but also not letting himself get distracted by caring about it. He was perfectly justified in his anger and he wasn’t going to let some fake expression of hurt on Mike Carden’s face change his mind.

* * *

Kevin was distracted from his afternoon studying by the sound of the phone ringing.

That’s right, the scammer – _Carden_ – was going to call him back that afternoon. Well, Kevin was right in that his grandmother definitely wouldn’t answer – she wasn’t even home on Friday afternoons – but he wasn’t going to answer either. He wasn’t giving that jerk the time of the day, no matter how guilty Carden must feel for his actions.

He continued to mope around like that all weekend, unsure of why the situation was even causing him to mope. It was finally on Sunday night when he complained of the whole thing to Joe over the phone that his younger brother cut him off and exclaimed, “Dude, you like this guy!”

Kevin scoffed, “I do not.”

“You do so. Kev, I’ve known you for 18 years, I think I can tell when you have a crush.”

And, well, damn. Maybe he did have a crush on Carden. Maybe he always had a crush on Carden and that’s why being ignored by him while also looked down upon by him had bothered him in the first place; he wanted Carden to look at him as though he was something special.

* * *

This is definitely not how he expected his Monday to begin.

He had barely even been off the bus for thirty seconds before two arms – one on each side – linked into his arms and forcibly walked Kevin away from the doors of the building and toward the far end of the wall. As the two bodies, which Kevin recognized as Carden’s two best friends Bill Beckett and Michael Guy Chislett, dragged him around the corner, he felt that this was it; he was finally going to be beaten or murdered and chopped up and left for nobody to find.

Yeah, he knew he was overdramatic, but what other reason could they have for dragging him off into private without even asking him?

Bill wasted no time. “You’re going to call Mike this afternoon.”

“Umm, no?” Kevin wasn’t exactly sure what to say, and he was probably going to get punished for this, but he certainly did not want to be calling Carden.

“Oh, yes you are.”

Shaking his head, Kevin stood his ground. “No way. He tried to scam my _grandmother_ , I don’t care how _guilty_ he feels—”

“Oh, lay off, he did not,” came Chislett’s response, and wow, how did Kevin never notice that this guy didn’t even have an American accent?”

“He just wanted to talk to you,” Bill explained, “but he fucking chickened out at the last minute.”

That had Kevin’s head reeling. “Wait…what?”

Bill couldn’t possibly be telling the truth, could he? Who would call someone and pretend to be a scammer just to talk to someone? Of course, Kevin reasoned with himself, it would explain why the scammer – why _Carden_ – had attempted to keep him on the line even after Kevin had broken through the whole stupid scam. Despite that logical thought, he wasn’t exactly ready to accept that he had been wrong because _this is what Carden does_.

“Mike’s been head over heels for you since freshman year, but only _now_ has he decided to do something about it, and you’ve basically crushed his heart—”

“Woah, woah.” Kevin threw his arms up in emphasis as he cut off the taller man. “I…what?”

Chislett grabbed one of Kevin’s arms and slapped a piece of paper down into his hand. “Call him.”

“Or we might really have to interfere,” Bill added with a warning tone.

As the two men both glared at him one last time before walking away, Kevin stood motionless for a moment. He watched until the two were out of his sight before looking down at the piece of paper in his hand. Using both hands, he unfolded it to find a phone number on it along with the message, _“Don’t you dare break his heart again.”_

Well, then. It certainly did him no favours that Carden didn’t appear in any class all day.

* * *

Finally scrounging up the courage, Kevin – sitting on the couch with his books and tater tots, like almost every afternoon – picked up the phone and dialled Carden’s number.

_“Hello?”_ came the gruff voice on the other end.

God, how did Kevin not recognize his voice the last time?

“Umm, hi, Mike?” Kevin began nervously. “I think my IP address has been compromised. Can you help me out?”


End file.
